Some good looking stuff there mate! I'm keen to try both the Sierra Nevada's myself. The Kozel I have had and I wasn't too fussed with it, though it was far from undrinkable. Vale Lager eh? Probably won't let you down I guess. The others look tasty too, especially the Oyster stout. I have tried the Grand Ridge Moonshine, a heavy scotch beer, and it was decent, but I think I drank it too cold initially. It really started to shine with the rise in temperature.

Just got a haul of Hobglin today. I can't be too arsed about going to the 'local' tonight seeing it'll probobally just be the same band with the same crap playing anyway, having a easy-one this weekend with the football to watch in Brazil and some USBM bands I need to check out.

Recently found out that a local (well, semi-local) dep has TONS of microbrews. Every single one of them looking more intriguing and delicious than the last. I tried two last night. First, Ale de Hardy, a barley wine beer. It's 10.5% and tastes it. It's a bit overwhelming with taste at first. Definitely taste the fruitiness of it but also some subtle spiciness. A little molasses in there, with bitterness to balance out those many dried fruit. This is the kind of stuff you slowly sip.

Also tried something called Dominus Vobiscum Double. An 8% ABV. This one tasted pretty sweet. I got some caramel flavours in there definitely, with some slight bitterness. It looks very nice and smells even better. Goes down really well, at whatever speed.

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theposaga about a Moonblood rehearsal wrote:

So good. Makes me want to break up with my girlfriend, quit my job and never move out of my parents house. Just totally destroy my life for Satan.

Yeah, I was glad when they launched Torpedo as Sierra Nevada knows their way around an IPA but unfortunately didn't have a basic year-round IPA until that came out (their anniversary and Christmas beers are both IPA variants). The porter is tasty, too. I still use their pale ale as my yardstick for comparing other American pale ales, as it's extremely middle of the road but in a really pleasant way. Other stuff in that haul looks tasty, too.

Drank the Mission Brewing Shipwrecked DIPA last night. Really nice beer - really thorough malt backbone throughout the whole flavor profile. The hop profile was very up-front and particularly spicy, with the typical citrus and subtle pine coming in on the finish. Nice little deviation from the norm there. Really looking forward to drinking their Imperial Stout.

Drank the Mission Brewing Dark Seas Russian Imperial Stout last night. Really fantastic beer. All the usual heavy roasting flavors came through, of course, but all that coffee, chocolate and burnt malt served as the anchor, the rhythm section really, while the wonderful stone fruits played lead. Really wonderful layering of flavors. It really started to shine as it warmed, and the slightly sticky medium body developed the slightest bit of graininess on the tongue. Their DIPA was good, but this was great.

Gave the Moondog Tripel IPA a crack yesterday- at $50 per 6 pack, it's not a cheap one. It was pretty good, it's meant to be belgian + IPA but I reckon it was closer to a Barleywine + Belgian beer. One of the most syrupy beers I've ever had, strong citrus and with that typical trappist malt thing but with a huge amount of hops in it too. I only bought a bottle because I'm a poor uni student.. next time i'll buy a few of them as it was quite a strange one and not something I'm really used to. Somewhat strong too at 11.5% but the alcohol isn't tasted which is a very good thing.

Man, $50 for a six pack? What do you usually pay for a sixer good craft brew/import stuff? The most expensive 6-packs of anything I've ever seen were maybe $25-26, and those were beers that would be $17-18 for a six-pack at a store that doesn't gouge you.

Holy cow. A six pack of torpedo here runs like $8. Imported stuff is rarely more than $15; the ~$20 stuff is usually craft brewed stuff that's a one-off, or really high ABV, or whatever.

I guess single 12 ounce bottles of stuff like Dogfish head World Wide Stout or 120 Minute IPA can be like $8-10 a piece, and sometimes single small bottles of the rarer Trappist stuff gets up there (Rochefort, Orval especially). You can't even find that stuff in a 6-pack, though.

Holy cow. A six pack of torpedo here runs like $8. Imported stuff is rarely more than $15; the ~$20 stuff is usually craft brewed stuff that's a one-off, or really high ABV, or whatever.

I guess single 12 ounce bottles of stuff like Dogfish head World Wide Stout or 120 Minute IPA can be like $8-10 a piece, and sometimes single small bottles of the rarer Trappist stuff gets up there (Rochefort, Orval especially). You can't even find that stuff in a 6-pack, though.

Sixer of SNPA here is about 22€ i.e. 28$. Mind you, a single is one sixth of that price. The law states that a store must sell singles at the same price as the cost of one bottle in a multipack. Domestic quality craft ain't that much cheaper. Or depends on the producer, I suppose. Recently one of the largest crafts came out with an APA in half a liter cans with a price of 2,5€ (3,2$) per can. Before that the prices for domestic APA or IPA were above four euros for a bottle of 33cl. Apparently a four pack of 120 Minute IPA costs 36$ at the brewery. Trappist beers are relatively cheap here though. Chimays are a tad below four euros, Orval a tad above. Achel and Rochefort are above five, I think. Though neither are available currently due to dumb monopoly rules.

Tonight's session includes Left Hand's Fade to Black - A stout, not something I typically reach for in July but I was sold on how flavorful it is in a sample - and Bear Republic's Red Rocket Ale, which I've been anticipating trying for a while to see how it stacks up against my preference for Irish reds. Should be a, ahem, colorful evening.

Addendum: I've just enjoyed a couple pints of Stone's RuinTen IPA courtesy of a friend and goddamn, it just might be one of the best IPA's I've ever had. I missed out on their 7/4 DrinkBy and this was the next best thing, apparently. There will be more of this in my future. Excellent stuff here, gents.

I have never tried a Fullers IPA, but should be decent from this British brewer. Their Armagnac aged Reserve (No 4 I think from memory) was bloody delicious and really shone when it was at room temperature. Not sure if this will be massively different to the USA styled IPA's but we'll see. I think I have seen some positive things in this thread about Green Flash's beers, so I'm hoping this barleywine will be good, but I think I'm going to let it sit for a while before I open it. New Zealand's 8 Wired seems like a winner straight off the bat, as I'm fast becoming very fond of smoked porters, so looking forward to that one.

Lots of love here for Westmalle, so the tripel will be a treat. The Ovila looked interesting while I was browsing, and is brewed with plums (as well as already being a quad), and will be something for the palate to wrangle with, as it also packs a 10.2% ABV - yum. Never had the Shipwrecked, but I do like me a massive DIPA flavour.

Game of Thrones beer, Tony? Jesus...christ, what a retarded marketing gimmick. Ommegang is a good brewery, for sure, but that's just incredibly dumb. Fucking hell. What was their tagline, "Summer is Coming?" But you know people will still buy that shit because Game of Thrones.

Last weekend I bought a big bottle of Sierra Nevada Torpedo and another of the Russian (Lithuanian produced) Zhigulevskoe. The latter was alright, nothing special but not disgusting, probably wouldn't buy it again. The Torpedo was pretty damn good, though I'm not really sure excessive amounts of hops is really what does it for me in beer. It's interesting and definitely is tasty in its own way, but I suppose it gets a bit cloying for me pretty quickly. Tried a glass of Ommegang's Fleur de Houblon the other day, which was better, very hoppy but lighter and more floral, as well as Barrier's Money IPA, which was also quite nice and fruity. Barrier Medulla was much less interesting. Screw you, Medulla. Screw you.

If anyone finds themselves in Galway Ireland then you should seek out the Salt House. It's a really nice pub that stocks loads of different beers, the bar itself is jam packed with taps. I haven't tried many of them but there's definitely something for everyone, I did try the Galway Hooker ale which is superb as well as the local stout which is Stormy Port. In Ireland we don't really have much of a microbrewery culture, the big international drinks really have control but Galway is kind of different because there seems to be a real small beer town. Also The Franciscan Well in Cork city is also a great spot for local brews. Every beer is brewed in house as well which is great.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the Ovila w/plums. It wasn't bad but it still had some of the same issues that the Abbey Dubbel has, namely it's too clean. Beers with Belgian yeast are supposed to have more esters going on. The esters that were there were weird too, sort of out-of-place. Banana and bubblegum were two that came to mind for me (same with the dubbel).

I'm disinclined to drink my last two bottles of it yet equally disinclined to drainpour them. Perhaps the yeast will work some magic after a year or two in the cellar.

EDIT: oh and I prefer Westmalle Dubbel to Tripel. The Tripel was too peppery for me. Been years since I've had it though, need to revisit it.

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iamntbatman wrote:

On Friday I passed an important milestone in my teaching career: a student shat himself

we hope you die wrote:

I would happily have 'if you are a false, don't entry' tattooed across my arse.

Recently I tried Stone's RuinTen IPA, at a wopping 10.8% ABV. Arrogant Bastard Ale is a favorite of mine, so I decided to give that IPA a go. I loved it!! Drank the bottle and chugged some cider and some WEAK beer afterwards! I'm drinking Long Trail Double Bag right now, a decent brew which tastes of coffee/chocolate and weighs in at 7.2% ABV.

Not much of a beer fan (whiskey is the drink of choice), but tried out some Mississippi Mud Black & Tan with a few friends this weekend. And all I can say is coffee. It looked, tasted, and went down like thick, black (spiked) coffee. Which was surprisingly good. I'd recommend it if you enjoy coffee, or cheap beer (the local warehouse club sells it for $2.60 per bottle), but tasting like coffee is all it's really good for.

Anything cellar-like should work; if any part of your house is on concrete slab just toss them in that room and keep it dark. Some people have storage under staircases, etc. that would work well. In lieu of that, you could always buy one of those wine storage mini-fridges and keep it in there. I gave one of those to my ex and we stored beer in there for several years at a time with no issue (I guess you'd probably be fucked in the event of a long-term power outage).

The nice thing about those is that, if you set them at a proper cellar temperature, you can also put beer in there short-term just to get them/keep them at cellar temperature so you can drink one whenever you want instead of letting it sit out on the counter warming up a bit (always frustrating!).

Awesome. Will look into this sort of thing to age some brews and get the best out of a high quality beer, as I'd like to see the change in the flavour profile if given some time to mature etc. I have a shed/garage in my yard that should do the trick, as it's all built on a concrete slab, and is fairly dark, so it should work well.

No, I don't have an actual cellar. I suspect that 90% of people who age beer long term don't, same as with wine. As batman said, anything cellar-like should do at least for a few years. I've really only been doing it 4 years myself (coming up on five), so I can't comment on how a non-ideal setup works beyond that. I will say that one of the five best beers I've ever had was around 11 years old (from a company that deliberately ages their beer before release), so it can definitely be pretty damn rewarding, and I've had numerous beers in the 1 to 3 year range which were tasty and improved. I've also had some pretty good beer go to crap. Make sure you pay attention to the dates of any beer you plan to cellar, and corroborate that with when you bought them. I've not had many bad experiences myself and most of the ones I have had were beers which had already been "aged" for a while in whatever store I bought them in (some people jokingly refer to this as "floor aging" or "shelf aging"). Most stores are not keeping their beer in ideal conditions, particularly with regards to lighting. I can't think of too many off the top of my head, but while I haven't many beer-going-bad experiences, I know I have had a few where they didn't necessarily turn into bad beer, just different beer and I preferred what they tasted like fresh or some earlier age. I attribute my relatively low failure rate to a few things. Looking into beers (or styles of beer) that are said to age well first, having clear ideas of what I like (you may very well find there are certain "aged flavors" you can't stand), and having a set-up that, while not perfect, is a long way from terrible.

I use a basement. Half in a cabinet, half in beer cases outside the cabinet, with a few odds and ends in random places depending on how much room I have. I have few lambics but what I have are stored horizontally per tradition and space, everything else is upright (there's a lot of arguing/aimless banter about the hocus pocus of upright vs horizontal storage, FYI). That basement probably averages around 65F over the course of a year, with lows probably being around 59 or 60. I highly doubt it ever gets above 68. Ideal is considered 55F. No direct lighting of any kind. Humidity shouldn't be an issue unless you plan on doing 10+ years of aging, at which point you might have to worry about bottle caps rusting. Anyway, there is a dehumidifier lying around, so I can use it if I eventually find it necessary. Realistically, I don't expect to age many beers beyond five years.

Mostly, the beers I age fall into that nebulous spectrum of beers which some people call old ales, some call strong ales, some call stock ales, some call barleywines, some (depending on region) call Scotch ales/Scottish Ales/Wee Heavy, but they all more or less mean the same thing: strong as shit beer that isn't a stout or a bock. I usually call them barleywines, and differentiate based on hop content. These compose just under half of the 100-ish bottles I have. My imperial stout/porter/black beer collection has nearly doubled in the last year to become the second most common style, but that's mostly due to finding a few very specific stouts in the last year that did well/spectacular with 1 to 2 years on them and then stocking up on them (broadly speaking, I still prefer aged barleywines). After that comes Belgian strong dark ales/abbey quadruples, which are more or less Belgium's answer to Great Britain's barleywines/old/stock ales. After that, every other style of beer I'm aging at the moment doesn't get above single digits.

There is a very particular niche of people who cellar beer---a niche among niches, I guess---who almost exclusively cellar lambic and sour beer. They are very, very vocal about it. If you go to beer websites, like www.beeradvocate.com or www.ratebeer.com, you will find the cellar subforums littered with proclamations like "I started out aging lots of beer and now I only age sours and lambic." Just something to keep in mind. I don't think they are nearly as big a ratio of beer agers as they look like, and in fact I've seen forum polls on both those sites where other styles have won out for most cellared style. But they are a pretty consistent fabric of the craft/quality beer aging class, so if you delve more into the hobby you will hear from them frequently.

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iamntbatman wrote:

On Friday I passed an important milestone in my teaching career: a student shat himself

we hope you die wrote:

I would happily have 'if you are a false, don't entry' tattooed across my arse.

Thanks for the info, as I will want to start cellaring when I have something to properly store them to age. I'm finding more and more with me, that stouts, and well darker, heavier beers in general are my preferred choice, as I really like the strong, malty (and often bitter) flavours to be more enticing - aging them would be something else if their flavour improves with age. Heavier alcohol content beers I also enjoy immensely - as long as the sting from the actual alcohol doesn't overpower the experience, with Belgians and the like. I certainly need to expand my experience with craft/old name beers/brewers more though, and have been over the years (terrible! ), because I love beer, and when at home I prefer to sit over something of quality rather than quantity, because taste rules.

Ayinger is my all 'round favorite brewery so far (though to be fair, I've only consumed beer for about a year and a half). Some of their beers are beaten in their respective classes, but I think they're some of the best bang for your buck you're going to get, especially with what's commonly available in the States-and I think you can always rely on all of their products to be pretty fucking good.

It's pretty delicious stuff, though not quite as unique as I'd hoped it would be. I was expecting a bit more presence on the part of the special flavors it employs ("grains of paradise, coriander, ginger, sweet orange peel"), but mostly it just tastes like a really nice, very flavorful but not particularly unusual Belgian-style ale. Definitely recommended as a delicious beverage, but won't be throwing seasoned ale connoisseurs any interesting curveballs.